My Character Experiences by Al-T
=Some of The Character Experiences I Have Had= This is another general overview of some of the various character classes I have played and should in no way be considered a detailed guide on how to play each class. Everyone will have their own playing style, preferences for items, methods of crafting etc. I decided to include this page as there may be one or two things here that hopefully can benefit other players. This guide is merely my interpretation of how I would play each class. Amazon (Bowazon or Javazon) Multishot + Guided arrow (at later levels Immolation and Freezing arrow for immunes). Max multishot ASAP. Maximize dodge, avoid, evade, critical strike, penetrate and pierce if you are serious about Insanity runs. Guided maximization can be left until quite a bit later. Uses javelin skills such as Plague Javelin and Lightning Fury for the monsters immune to Bow Skills. A Javazon just does the opposite of a Bowazon, using bow skills for things that are immune to her Spear & Javelin skills. Assassin (Hybrid or Martial Artist) Mix Martial + Traps from an early stage (something I didn't do). Early on invest in Charged Bolt Sentry, it is an awesome skill at lower levels. Also as soon as you can, put a point or 2 in Fade and Cloak of Shadows. Later levels you can add higher Shadow skills and max Traps. A pure martial asn is probably a better choice here, at least until you get her to Level 3000+. After that you can go in any direction you like but if you can't "twink" her enough you may have to have a mixture of Traps + Martial skills. A Bowsin is also a good choice but will struggle at lower levels until she can add "Venom" to her bag of tricks. Barbarian (Whirlwind or Frenzy + Double Swing or Throw Barb) Start with Double swing very early and go for later levels with either Whirlwind or Frenzy + Double Swing. Whirlwind is easier for higher levels as you can keep Concentration/Berserk as a switchable on the left mouse skill. Frenzy + Double Swing = a switch on the right plus one on the left....harder to do in the Insanity levels. I shouldn't need to say this but max Battle Orders makes a Barb the easiest apart from maybe a Druid to get to/close to the 8.38 million life cap. EDIT A barb can make it all the way with any of his skills as the main attack focus, it's just that the higher end skills like whirlwind and frenzy/double swing combination will get him there faster. Also, if you are playing Hardcore or tournament play, a good choice is to use Double Throw to avoid the dangers of Iron Maiden in Act 5. Druid (Shapeshifter or Summoner) A Shapeshifter (wolverine) or a Summoner (wolves) can both make it in this mod so the choice is purely your own preference. What to watch for as a summoner is, in the Hell Insanity Levels certainly at Players 127 and maybe lower, all the main monsters are "Immune to Physical" so you would also probably want to use Hurricane and Armageddon and a good mercenary with a spread of damage types. Necromancer (Hybrid or Summoner) Ahh my current favourite. Early game use some skels and mages with a few points in mastery, particularly mages (please note: the Players 127 exploit no longer works). Amplify damage will be your best friend throughout so don't skimp on points for it (the further away you can cast it with the monster densities in ZyEl the better). A Blood golem and Iron Maiden will help also (blood golem + IM = damage received converted to life + damage returned to attacker) but it isn't foolproof...damn blood witches. Corpse Explosion in normal mode can also be a godly skill but look to Poison Explosion and Nova for later on alongside Revive. An absolute must for a Necromancer is Bone Spirit. You can get extremely high damage on this without a lot of +skills items and it is magic damage, to which even in ZyEl, there are not many immunes but be warned.....it has a huge mana cost. If you concentrate on Mages and build your Necromancer correctly you can kill everything, including ALL IMMORTALS, in Hell Insanity levels at Players 127 using as few as 50 Mages. Something other characters can only do with a lot of added items/crafting. Paladin (Zealot) Max Zeal + Fanatacism + Holy Shield is the path I have gone so far with my Paladin. I am trying to max Blessed Hammer and Concentration at the moment. Yes I know it sounds like a traditional boring build but it works quite well so far...he can do cows at any players setting 1-127. Insanity Levels.....he can now do "Wayside of Woe" normal at "Players 127". From what I can see from playing he is a bit like the elemental or summoner Druid in that 1.09x doesn't have synergies to make them strong enough in ZyEl without months of megaload crafting (jewels with insane elemental damage). If anyone knows a better strategy for either, please, please, please share your knowledge. I discovered that a Paladin using Conversion can make life a whole lot easier for himself in the Insanity levels. A few Chimeras fighting for you in Wayside of Woe takes a bit of the pressure off and speeds up the kill rate. You can't convert all monsters but it is worth doing a few of the ones you can, especially Chimeras in WoW. EDIT A Hammerdin can make it through all the normal quests (norm-nm-hell) but will also struggle in the insanity levels. Guess what?....Use a bow containing elemental damage jewels with fanaticism/blessed aim alternatively. It's what "switch weapons" was made for, so hit that "W" key. Another extremely useful skill for a Paladin, even in the Insanity levels, is Smite. A high level Smite will stun Chimeras and Mini-Diablos and the effect will last quite a long time. Sorceress (Hybrid) First character I got just about right and played in version 4.2b of Zy-El all the way through to Hell Baal and beyond. Suffers from the usual drawbacks that a sorc in "vanilla" and most other mods does to begin with....she has to spread her skills to survive. The good thing about Zy-El is it only applies early on and at level 3K she has the ability to max every skill in every tree not counting skill quests and +skills items. My advice is pick a skill tree with one high end skill to get you through normal mode and max that skill. After that, spread your skills on the other 2 trees. For later game, get Hydra and Firewall as high as you can. EDIT Sorc can do it all on her own but it is slow going. Hey...guess what?....give her a bow with elemental damage jewels (no need for fire...use enchant for that) and she can back this up with her array of elemental chaos. Advantage sorc....one less element to craft for. Back To Guides